The ROI Revolution Online FlexList feature is an exciting new addition to our database product that lets you take control of your constituent lists in a way you never could before. You can create these lists from a number of places throughout the application.

1. choose the [SAVE FLEXLIST] command at the top of your search results lists
2. choose the [SAVE FLEXLIST] command at the top of most tables that contain
3. constituent information throughout the application — such as the account clean-up functions on the TOOLS tab, the prospecting lists in the MG Console, or pretty much any other list of constituent records.
4. choose the Save the results to a FlexList option when you execute any QTool query.
5. you can even add the members of any account to any existing FlexList from the individual donor view and edit pages, just click the and images at the top of the page.
6. every user also has an automatically-created “recent accounts” list that contains all of the accounts you have worked on recently, kept up-to-date as you work.

When you create a FlexList you can give it a name and a detailed description — so that you can remember what it was. Then the fun begins.

The tools in this section let you go back and manipulate your FlexLists in interesting ways.

1. list maintenance: use this tool to review your lists, change their names and descriptions, delete lists you no longer want, give copies of your lists to your closest friends, and refresh the list by dynamically re-executing whatever command was used to create the list in the first place. (Admins note: There’s a second version of this tool built especially for you, that lets you manipulate FlexLists created by anyone in your organization!)
2. list output: this tool lets you view and export the contents of your lists, and add almost any other database elements to the output listing. You can create as many collections of output fields as you like, name the collections, and easily apply them to other lists you create in the future.
3. combine lists allows you to mix and match.
   1. Add two lists together to create a third, larger list using the “UNION” operator.
   2. Find accounts that any two of your lists have in common by using the “INTERSECTION” operator.
   3. Remove accounts in one list from any of your other lists with the “MINUS” operator.

   You can name and describe each of these new combined lists, and operate on them the same way you can with any other lists.

4. flexload tool: if you’re familiar with our Upload Tool, you’ll see right away what FlexLoad is all about. It gives you the ability to take a list, and apply some common database operations to all of the accounts inside it.
   1. Assign a flag
   2. Write a comment or research note
   3. Create contact history records

   It’s easy for us to write new database operation scripts, so if you don’t what you need, just ask.

Who are the people in the neighborhood?

I got an email last week from one of my client pals saying, “Hey Mama G – wouldn’t it be cool if ROI could make something whereby we could enter in a zip code and find all the donors within a certain radius?” The thinking was if they were doing an event or planning a trip, they could locate all the people nearby and invite them.

In nerd-language, this is called “Geo-Coding” and it deals with longitude and latitude coordinates (which we happen to store in your database for every record) and a thing called “higher-mathematics” …and something called the Haversine Formula. You know the one that goes like this:

That helps you to answer this question:

Finally a use for algebra! …and well anyway, it’s so much better than having to know all the zip codes or that CBSA-data stuff, isn’t it?
So we got our shiny cool glasses and a couple of chalk boards and got to work right away.

Now, in the MG Console you will find this handy little ditty:

This feature was brought to you by The Haversine Formula & Letter R.

In the meantime, if you are looking for a distraction watch this video

QTool queries….Set ‘em & forget ‘em

I know, try as you might, it’s hard to forget queries. But now, when you have a query that you like to run on a regular basis, you can use the new schedule function. This allows you to run a query on whatever interval you chose.
Just click the schedule icon:

Pick your desired schedule:

And sit back and relax. We’ll take care of the rest for you.

You will soon notice, that if your query uses any date selections, if you use the schedule option, we will prompt you to see if you want “relative” or “absolute” dates. This gives you the option of advancing your date criteria into the future with relative dates — or using the same fixed date each time you run the query.

Promotions

The promotion screens have some pretty nifty features that are worth highlighting. First of all, if you don’t know, the Promotional Screens are nothing more than groupings for your source codes which can be grouped by campaign, source type, contact type, and contact year — to help keep them organized. And what’s unique to Revolution Online is that rather than having a hard-coded display that you can’t change, we allow you the ability to customize this so you can change the view:

Like perhaps, let’s say you want to see it organized by Promotion:

…Or by Year (Calendar or Fiscal):

And within that, you can even select which years and columns you want to see:

The reason why this is nice is because then at whatever level you want to see, you can click on the branch in the tree-view navigation, select the summary or donation buttons to get a real-time view of your results.

Did You Know? >>MG Actions

Revolution Online gives you an easy way to manage your Major Gifts Projects & Actions. In addition to setting up Projects for groups of records through the Major Gifts Project Wizard (see Major Gifts Project Wizard) you can also mark Actions as completed through the MG Console. To do this, simply go into the Console, view your actions and use the handy little drop down wizard as shown below:

Rather than having to go into each individual record one at a time, the Project Wizard allows you the ability to use already existing features of Revolution Online to search for records – and then take action in a systematic way. Read the project wizard white paper:

roi-solutions_project-wizard